Kirkpatrick Sale is an American environmental writer whose work focuses on the effects of growing populations upon the environment.

Sale was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1937.  He attended Swarthmore College, but transferred after a year home to Cornell University, majoring in history.  His main interest soon switched to journalism.  Subsequently, Sale went to work for the leftist journal, New Leader, worked for the New York Times Magazine, and spent time in Africa.  Eventually he left these positions and became a freelance journalist.

His first book was about the radical organization "Students for a Democratic Society", or SDS.  Sale's research altered his political views a great deal.  His next book was Power Shift, which turned to the topic of environmental politics.  Later on, Sale published Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy.  This book explored the spread of European culture and its effect on the present-day environment.  In it, Sale proposes that modern cultures return to the environmentally sound practices of those peoples who were wiped out by Europeans.

Sale has also published In Human Scale and Dwellers in the Land.  Both books focus on "bioregionalism", or the ethic of living within constraints set by the environment.  Sale strongly believes that humans must bow to nature, not the reverse.  Referring to all these works, Sale has stated:  "I write my books to help save society and the planet."

Articles by Kirkpatrick Sale